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Friday, May 17, 2013

Showing Update and Journaling

My week has been full of the the usual show season
bustle.I came back from Whidbey last
week just long enough to get unpacked, wash all the dirty laundry, and then
repack for Donida! We were off again for my second Young rider attempt.I have to say one thing I like about region
6, the shows are only an hour or two away from home. No more 6 or 8 hours each
way.But then again, those long drives
gave Bre and I some great talking time.

Anyway, Sjapoer
did not seem to like checking out a new place.For our first ride he looked like he wanted to spit fire.He was tense and tight.In the past I would try to work with this by
‘making’ him behave.However, as I have
noted in the blog several times Jeremy and Shauntel have been teaching me great
strategies and a new way of thinking in dealing with him when he feels this
way. These techniques have given me a lot of confidence indealing with his moods and also makes us more
consistent.We ended up with a 69.85 and
69.

The best part of
the weekend was spending time getting to know some of my fellow young
riders.This close to the border there
was actually a Canadian rider in my class.He was very welcoming and came over and introduced himself.Some of you might remember him from Junior’s
last year.His name is Colby Dodd and he
is 6’3' with an equally as tall horse Capri, hard to miss among all the girls at NAJRYC!I won both the individual and team class (the
prizes were backpacks) so in the spirit of cross-country good will, I gave him
one and now we are ‘backpack buddies.’

Once I got home
after two straight weekends of showing I crashed.I’m behind in my Spanish and Honors American
Lit class.I am reading both Animal Farm
and The Catcher in the Rye.I can’t
understand why books about young people finding themselves and growing into
adulthood always have to be so depressing or negative.Anyway, while I was digging through my
notebooks I found the huge folder of information we got at the first EDAP
clinic in Florida.I was reading through
all the material and I remembered something really interesting that I had not
shared with you yet; journaling!We had
the most amazing speaker talk to us about how to record our thoughts and
information from lessons, clinics and other events in order to gainmore advantage from keeping a journal.

The following
information is a bit of information I took from our handouts from
barnbynotes.com We had four handouts, one each from Courtney King-Dye, Lendon
Gray, Rachel Saavedra and Dr. Kathy Kelly about their journaling techniques.Dr. Kelly did a lot of research on how to use
journaling to be part of actual practice and becomes part of the learning
process when we can move information we have gained from short into long term
memory.She tolds us that when we take a
lesson we have to be careful because when we learn we can learn things right or
wrong.The brain doesn’t care, it just
remembers.She said that “journaling
effectively allows us to visually, intellectually and kinesthetically solidify
and understand what is correct and incorrect.”Offset the negative learning by journaling.When writing about things not to do use
negative words in order to help your brain think about not doing those
things.When you are writing about what
NOT to do write about how something felt wrong, visualize it and then correct
it.Visualize and think in positive
terms how to do something correctly.How
did it feel.How did it look.Break it down into as detailed and specific
description as you can.Don’t say
something was good or better.Say it
felt “Soft, bouncy, full, llight, uphill, forward. The words you use should
immediately conjure up for you a feeling that you can relate to, that heps you
recreate the memory of that moment.”Finally, Dr. Kelly said to then summarize in a brief overview (no
details) what you learned.This is like
restating the big picture after the details.

Rachel Saavedra
said her style of journaling was a ‘teach back.’She would write down after lessons or a ride,
how she could explain or teach to others what she had just learned or experienced.She wrote trying to break things into
teachable or understandable segments in order to develop ‘excercises and
concepts for teaching each subject.”

Courtney is an
avid journaler.She said in the 18 years
she had been journaling she filled up about 30 journals, sometimes four a five
a year.She said, “using a notebook
helps riders contemplate what they did in the saddle to see what worked.And it gives them the opportunity to reflect
on what didn’t and why.”Her suggestions
were to take your notebook everywhere with you.You never know when you might have an ‘ah ha moment’.She also had specific questions she asked
herself after riding.She would ask,
what worked and why?What didn’t work
and why?Finally, she did not just
detail what happened.She said you need
to write down how it felt.Try to be
descriptive of how it felt in the hands, in the leg, in the saddle, in your
muscles, in your arms, etc.Oh and
Courtney enjoyed humor in her journals, remember the fun and funny parts of our
lives with horses.For example, I
remember one time my mom was feeding Swift in his stall. He liked to nudge
around for treats which she often carried in her back pocket.He actually got his lips around her cell
phone, pulled it out of her pocket and proceeded to dump in directly in his
water bucket.How we laughed about
that.It definitely made it into the
journal that day.

Finally, Lendon’s
journaling.First, she said she used to
taperecord herself.Ok so after we got
done laughing at the idea of a taperecorder I really liked the idea.I like writing, but honestly I usually talk
into my phone first and say what I want and then fix it from there.So Lendon would tell her thoughts to the
recorder on the drive home.I think it
is great to have a specific time to make a habit of journaling.The drive home could be a good time, while
you are waiting for a drying horse.Pick
a specific time every day and make it a habit.Anyway she had a three part system.The more times she touched the material the more she remembered and the
more it was usefully put into long term memory.So she would record, relisten and rewrite, then reorganize and
rewrite.When first writing, “brief
bullet points can be critical.” Then when rewriting let the thoughts flow and
try to elaborate.Finally, Lendon put
some goal sheets for riders up on barnbynotes.comcheck it out

So I have started
to be a better journaler.Still this
blog is a better part of it for me still than my daily log.I am going to take some of this advice
(again) and relook at how to improve my own journaling.Just like every other aspect of dressage, we
have to work hard and daily to find ways to improve!

1 comment:

Hi Ayden,This is Allison, founder of Barnby Notes! Lendon brought to my attention this post. I can't tell you how happy I am to know how receptive you were (and still are) to the Barnby Notes presentation. I have read many of your posts here and just love how mindful you are being of your in-arena training and inner, personal development. I truly am inspired by you!!! I would like to invite you to become a Team Writer Rider for Barnby Notes is you would like to write at Barnby Notes once every six weeks. Theres a bit more to the sponsorship, so email me at allison@barnbynotes.com. Once again, thank you for sharing your journaling and illustrating your dedication to yourself, your horse and your sport.... Allison

About Me

I am dedicated to a life in the Dressage World. I train with the USEF Developing Young Horse Coach Christine Traurig. I have been riding for 15 years and my ultimate dream is to have my own training and breeding facility with the goal of being in the Olympics.